Table of Contents

ecological footprint[s]

“the Ecological Footprint is a resource management tool that measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its wastes under prevailing technology. In order to live, we consume what nature offers. Every action impacts the planet's ecosystems. This is of little concern as long as human use of resources does not exceed what the Earth can renew. But are we taking more?”

“Climate change is not gonna be combatted through voluntary acts of individual charity. It's gonna be combatted through some kind of colossal, global-scaled, multilateral, hectic, catch-as-catch-can effort to stop burning stuff, suck the burnt smoke out of the sky, and put the smoke back into the ground. That's not gonna get done a little green teacup at a time, because we've been doing it for two centuries and we don't have two centuries to undo it.

“Reducing emissions” is a wrongheaded way to approach it. If “reducing emissions” is the goal, then the best technique available is to drop dead. The second-best technique is to go around killing a lot of people. Nobody's got a lighter eco-footprint than a dead and buried guy. He's not walking around leaving footprints: the Earth is piled on top of him.

We're past the point where reduction helps much; we will have to invent and deploy active means of remediation of the damage. But from another, deeper perspective: we shouldn't involve outselves in lines of development where the ultimate victory condition is emulating dead people. There's no appeal in that. It's bad for us. That kind of inherent mournfulness is just not a good way to be human. We're not footprint-generating organisms whose presence on the planet is inherently toxic and hurtful. We need better handprints, not lighter footprints. We need better stuff, not less stuff. We need to think it through and take effective action, not curl up in a corner stricken with guilt and breathe shallowly.”

– BruceSterling

“toward a flexible visualisation device/system for energy footprints and carbon economics. extending and elucidating the often simplistic connections between energy consumption, lifestyle choices and social decision making [aka. carbon footprinting, envronmental impact, environmental footprint analysis] by collating data form a variety of sources to be able to present a more holistic understanding of the various carbon economies and their wider environmental impacts.”

the cheeseburger footprint

“So as an exercise, let's examine the carbon footprint of something commonplace – a cheeseburger. There's a good chance you've eaten one this week, perhaps even today. What was its greenhouse gas impact? Do you have any idea? This is the kind of question we'll be forced to ask more often as we pay greater attention to our individual greenhouse gas emissions.” http://openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html

http://www.co2balance.com calculators and offset programs. rail calculator only works for UK stations. estimated carbon emissions for air travel were much lower than nativeenergy (0.19 tonnes vs 0.37 for berlin-bxl return).

“Just as in the 15th and 16th centuries you could sleep with your sister and kill and lie without fear of eternal damnation, today you can live exactly as you please as long as you give your ducats to one of the companies selling indulgences. It is pernicious and destructive nonsense.” – George Monbiot

“To understand the subtleties and difficulties in ecological footprinting, think of accounting.[…] How hard can accounting really be? How can any grey areas exist in an activity as seemingly concrete and dry as counting beans? But grey areas abound, and the task of accounting for nature's resources as well as their depletion from human demand is, to use the colloquial, a doozy. How can one compare the value of a single fish to that of a bushel of corn or a California redwood? How does that relationship change from the exhaust pouring out of your car or the dishwater circling your drain?” http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006904.html